Provenance: With Rafael Valls, London, by 1989;
By whom anonymously sold, New York, Sotheby’s, January 12, 1989, lot 128 (as Studio of Bernardo Bellotto);
There purchased by a New York private collector;
Thence by descent.

Note: This painting, formerly ascribed to the studio of Bellotto, has more recently been identified by Charles Beddington (see Literature) as a work by the so-called Lyon Master. Beddington has identified a group of works to be by an anonymous but distinctive hand belonging to an artist in Bellotto’s circle and who may have worked in his studio. His sobriquet is taken from a work in the Musée des Beaux-Arts, Lyon, The Grand Canal, Looking North from the Palazzo Rezzonico to the Palazzo Balbi that was formerly ascribed to Bellotto and re-attributed by Beddington to this master. A larger version of the present composition appeared at auction in London (Christie’s, December 12, 1986, lot 98, as Circle of Bellotto ; see Beddington,op.cit., p. 21, reproduced fig. 14), and has also now been re-assigned to the Lyon Master.

Sotheby’s. Old Master & 19th Century European Art, New York | 30 janv. 2015, 10:00 AM